Equity Residential is planning to raze the Garden Garage on Lomasney Way in Boston, and replace the hulking structure with a significant new mixed-use development.
The project remains in the planning stage, and Equity has yet to file a development proposal with city officials. However, the Chicago-based REIT has launched informal meetings with West End abutters to gauge the neighborhood’s appetite for new construction.
While plans remain fluid, it is believed Equity will propose two towers, and up to 500 rental units, for the garage site that currently houses the Basketball City bubble. The project would also include ground-floor retail and underground parking. Equity is expected to initiate the formal city development review process this fall.
Reshuffling The Deck
Equity already has a significant presence in the neighborhood. It purchased the Charles River Park complex a decade ago, taking control of an urban renewal project that had famously replaced the West End’s rowhouses with mid- and high-rise apartment complexes.
Equity paid a trust led by Boston’s Rappaport family $226 million for Charles River Park. In 2008, it built 310 additional units at the complex.
Equity Residential, led by legendary commercial real estate investor Sam Zell, is in the midst of a dramatic reshuffling of its apartment holdings. Speaking an Urban Land Institute forum in Boston earlier this year, Zell said Equity was shedding Sun Belt properties in favor of investments in core urban markets.
“We got rid of Atlanta and Charlotte, and we’re just replacing them with markets that are long-term positive,” Zell said.
And Greg White, Equity’s vice president of development, said at a NAIOP Massachusetts roundtable in June that while his firm was bullish on Boston, he didn’t anticipate the company growing in the area through acquisitions, as it has done in Manhattan.
“In this market, I can count on two hands how many Class A properties we’d purchase if they were on the market today,” he said, adding, “We see a lot of opportunity on the development side… Now is the time to develop. We need to be ready now to develop.”
White could not comment on Equity’s Garden Garage plans because they haven’t been finalized yet, but said in a statement the garage site has “potential.”
“Our recent project, the West End Apartments, has been a wonderful success and is 96 percent occupied. The Garden Garage site has potential as the next phase of Equity Residential’s development, and we are in the process of reviewing various scenarios. We consider ourselves to be an integral part of the West End community, and believe there is potential to add value to the neighborhood. We believe the best way to assess the needs of a community is to speak with residents before any formal proposals are presented. As in the past, we will continue to work with the community at every stage of any proposed project,” White said.
Stuck In Park
Boston developers haven’t had much luck recently in demolishing the urban renewal-era parking garages that dot Boston’s urban core.
The Chiofaro Co. is at loggerheads with City Hall over Chiofaro’s $900 million proposal for replacing the Harbor Garage with two towers. The union pension fund that controls the Government Center Garage recently booted its lead developer, Raymond Property Co., and shelved a $2.2 billion proposal to construct 42- and 52-story towers at the downtown site. And a bid by Steve Belkin to replace the city-owned Winthrop Square garage with a 1,000-foot-tall office tower withered amid opposition from the Federal Aviation Administration, conflict with the project’s original architect and a severe downturn in the office market.
Like the garages targeted by Chiofaro, Raymond and Belkin, Equity’s Garden Garage was built in an era when developers and city planners believed large above-ground parking structures were necessary to lure suburbanites into living and working in the city. In recent years, with few raw development parcels left downtown, developers have examined burying parking underground to free up land.
But underground parking costs hundreds of thousands of dollars per space to build, and normally needs to be paid for by density above. Chiofaro has complained the 200-foot height cap the city wants him to stick to would make his Harbor Garage redevelopment a money-losing venture.
Boston development observers believe Equity may have better luck achieving the kind of height it will need to pay for its garage’s destruction. The developer already owns a pair of 38-story apartment towers next to the garage; Delaware North has permits to construct a 37-story residential tower across the street.
